One of my favorite moments in all the year comes when we read the solemn last
lines of the Torah -- these last words from this week's portion, V'Zot
HaBrakha -- and immediately read the opening lines of the Torah. Sometimes we do it with two
scrolls. Sometimes we unroll a single scroll all the way from end to end, holding it in
gloved fingers carefully in a giant circle around the room so we can see it in all
of its complex beauty. We read the ending, and then we read the beginning.

It's
the original neverending story. Just as the story of human growth and potential
never ends, only spirals onward, so our reading of the Torah never ends but we begin
again. For me as a lover of story, this says something important about who we are
and how we understand ourselves.

Every year offers us a chance to begin again. Every
year that new beginning is informed by who we are and where we've been. One door
closes and another one opens. The last words lead to the first words which will eventually,
a year from now, lead us to the last words again. And then, again, the first words.
One of my favorite moments in all the year.

One of my favorite moments in all the year comes when we read the solemn last
lines of the Torah -- these last words from this week's portion, V'Zot
HaBrakha -- and immediately read the opening lines of the Torah. Sometimes we do it with two
scrolls. Sometimes we unroll a single scroll all the way from end to end, holding it in
gloved fingers carefully in a giant circle around the room so we can see it in all
of its complex beauty. We read the ending, and then we read the beginning.

It's
the original neverending story. Just as the story of human growth and potential
never ends, only spirals onward, so our reading of the Torah never ends but we begin
again. For me as a lover of story, this says something important about who we are
and how we understand ourselves.

Every year offers us a chance to begin again. Every
year that new beginning is informed by who we are and where we've been. One door
closes and another one opens. The last words lead to the first words which will eventually,
a year from now, lead us to the last words again. And then, again, the first words.
One of my favorite moments in all the year.